Michael Gold is a financial and economic development expert with over 30 years of experience, including nearly 20 years experience working in Africa, Central Europe, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union (FSU). He is highly regarded in emerging markets for his innovative approaches and ability to deliver results for clients. His specializations include access to finance, trade and export development and promotion, improving competitiveness, privatization, foreign direct investment, SME development, and the legal, regulatory and policy framework for private sector development.

As Managing Director of Crimson Capital, Mr. Gold oversees all of Crimson’s international development work, including a portfolio of 18 current projects and 5 master contracts on four continents. He has amassed extensive leadership experience in project design and implementation, serving as Chief of Party and Project Director on a wide range of complex economic development projects.

Mr. Gold’s career highlights include managing the Macedonia Business Resource Center (MBRC) which helped hundreds of SMEs become more competitive and generated over $95 million in new trade and investment; creating and implementing the Macedonia SME Commercial Finance Fund; advising the Czech government on privatization and enterprise restructuring, resulting in the successful privatization of over 200 major companies and over $6 billion in foreign direct investment; development of novel financial products resulting in over $15 million in new loans to SMEs; and helping the government of Macedonia secure a regional record price of 225 million EUR for the privatization of the national electricity distribution company, along with an investment commitment of 96 million EUR.

Mr. Gold is a shareholder in the award-winning Czech Herold Brewery, which also has substantial export exposure in both the U.S. and England. He has been instrumental in the implementation of numerous cultural, healthcare, charitable, and educational events in the Czech Republic over the last 15 years, and serves as the Chairperson of the Fund for Education and Co-Chairperson of the Small Business Council of the American Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Gold holds an Executive Management degree from UCLA, and a B.A. in biochemistry and physiology from Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

Robin Howell is one of the founders of Crimson Capital and has overseen all financial and administrative matters for the company since 1991. She enjoys more than 28 years of professional expertise in financial analysis and management, human resource administration, and corporate governance. Ms. Howell has been instrumental in facilitating Crimson Capital’s global portfolio expansion.

Ms. Howell previously served as Director of Operations for Tigera Group (formerly Fortune Computer), a publicly traded company. Ms. Howell is also Chairman of the Board for a variety of civic and charitable organizations, including the March of Dimes, the American Center for Law and Justice, the Rainforest Foundation, and the Trust for Public Land. Ms. Howell holds a B.S. in Business and Accounting from the University of South Carolina.

Ms. Dickmann has managed Crimson Capital’s Prague offices since 1998. She is responsible for all office operations, staff, accounting, and oversight. She coordinates Crimson’s activities across its disparate branches, including issues relating to registration, legal matters, and contracts with partners and suppliers.

Ms. Dickmann has also been involved in managing daily operations for Herold Brewery, including coordinating export orders and developing new sales opportunities. From 1991 – 1997, she worked as Import and Sales Manager for Daewoo Corporation, facilitating imports of diverse products into the Czech market during the initial transition to a market economy. In addition to her native Slovak, Ms. Dickmann is fluent in Czech and English and speaks some Russian and Dutch.

Ms. Marinovova has led Crimson Capital’s new business efforts since 2002 and is responsible for project and partner identification, recruitment, project startups, and database management. Her portfolio also includes advertisement and marketing initiatives that have enabled Crimson Capital’s rapid expansion to new markets in the last 4 years.

Previously, she held positions with the Dutch advertising agency Linea Recta, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Trade for the Czech Republic. Ms. Marinovova graduated from Banska Bystrica in her native Slovakia with a degree in Economics and a specialization in foreign trade. She speaks Slovak, Czech, and English fluently as well as some Bulgarian.

Ms. Syrovatkova is a member of Crimson's administrative support team. Her main duties are recruitment, project and partner identification. Ms. Syrovatkova has an extensive experience in the finance sector and in sales. Prior to joining Crimson, she worked as Personal Assistant to the Financial Adviser of the British life insurance company, Aviva. She has also served as an Assistant of Sales and Management at General Bottlers, s. r. o. and has worked as a translator and a technical writer.

Ms. Syrovatkova is a graduate of the University ESERP at Barcelona and holds a degree in business management and marketing. In addition to her native Czech, Ms. Syrovatkova speaks Slovak, English and Spanish fluently and German at an intermediate level.

Ms. Damjanovska has managed Crimson Capital’s offices in Skopje since 1996, where she is responsible for all administration, accounting, and reporting. She is also in charge of communicating with Crimson’s Prague and US offices and developing business opportunities in the Balkans. Ms. Damjanovska joined Crimson’s team on the Macedonian Business Resource Center(MBRC) Project, where she coordinated administrative and office management tasks for this large scale, USAID-funded project for several years.

At present, Ms. Damjanovska manages the administrative aspects of Crimson Capital’s SME Commercial Finance Fund in Macedonia as well as other Macedonian activities. She has completed several intensive training programs for project management, financial reporting, budgeting and human resources and has extensive experience in all USAID and EU requirements and procedures. Ms. Damjanovska has a B.S. in Biochemistry and Physiology from Sts. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and is fluent in Macedonian and English, as well as some Italian and German.

Ms. Breca has seven years of diverse experience working in the field of international development. Her most recent position has been with the Kosovo Cluster and Business Support (KCBS) program for USAID where she planned and managed the logistics for several “first ever” events in Kosovo.  This included the Kosovo Finance Fair, the Private-Public Dialog 100 Days Conference, and the Kosovo at the Crossroads Ohrid leadership retreat. For these activities, she developed close working relationships with all stakeholders including senior staff at KCBS, partner organizations in the public and private sectors, attendee firms/agencies, and service providers. Attendance at all events far exceeded expectations and were recognized as project “success stories” by USAID. Her activities over the last several years have included a range of administrative, logistic, financial and translation activities. Ms. Breca has also worked as a translator/interpreter for the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and British Military Forces.  She has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science, Diplomacy and Law from the University for Business and Technology (UBT). Ms. Breca speaks Albanian, Serbian and English fluently.

Peers Brewer is a commercial banker with extensive experience in US and international markets. His career began with Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company and extended through the acquisition of Chemical Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank. Within that time frame, he held numerous assignments, beginning as a security analyst for the banking, financial and insurance industries; followed by managing the investor relations department, strategic planning for the bank, financial modeling, managing relationships with international insurance companies and risk management for the bank.

International consulting assignments have been held in Tblisi, Seoul, Skopje, and Ulaan Baatar.

Mr. Brewer was the first General Manager of the Crimson Finance Fund, based in Pristina. The Fund is a short term lender to small and medium sized companies and entrepreneurs in Kosovo. The Fund primarily addresses the needs of customers whose financing is not easily accommodated within traditional banking practices. Mr. Brewer holds academic degrees from Colgate University (AB – History), Harvard University (BD – Theology), and New York University (PhD – Economics). He speaks Russian and Macedonian.

Mr. Currie is an expert on financial markets with 30 years of professional experience in international and domestic commercial banking. He has worked as project manager, country director, advisor, and trainer on numerous donor-funded projects in the Balkans, Asia, the former Soviet Union, and Africa. Mr. Currie has extensive experience developing and presenting training materials, training bank personnel, and establishing policy guidelines in all phases of credit risk assessment, loan workouts, asset and liability management, strategic planning and marketing, trade finance, and letters of credit. Mr. Currie’s experience includes serving as Country Director for the Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC) in Mongolia and East Asia for 4 years and serving as Vice President of Middle Market Lending for Barclays Bank plc.

Currently, Mr. Currie is Chief of Party and General Manager of the USAID-funded SME Commercial Finance Fund in Macedonia, Crimson’s flagship SME Finance Project. Mr. Currie holds a Master’s degree in Asian Studies from Indiana University, and completed the Chase Manhattan Bank Credit Training Program. Mr. Currie is fluent in Chinese and Mongolian, and speaks Russian at an intermediate level.

Mr. Fetahi is a senior finance and banking specialist with more than 17 years of experience. He began his career as a trade and international business representative and has since held a number of positions related to the development of the financial and private sectors in Kosovo. This includes working for FINCA-Kosovo as a Senior Loan Officer/Branch Manager focused on agricultural lending, and as a Credit Manager for BMF Kosovo. He has also held positions as a Risk and Collection Manager, focused on assessing market risk, operational risk, product development, and collection.

His most recent activity was for the European Agency for Reconstruction where he analyzed potential regional investments in Kosovo, completed surveys of SME development programs, to help develop industrial parks. Currently, Mr. Fetahi serves as the Deputy General Manager for the newly initiated Crimson Finance Fund in Kosovo where his responsibilities will include development of the Fund’s loan portfolio, marketing, and risk management. Mr. Fetahi has an M.B.A from IEM-TUV, Technical University Vienna, and speaks English and Serbian in addition to his native Albanian.

Pleurat Hundozi is an experienced Economist with substantial practice in a wide range of areas including SME development, FDI, finance, trade, workforce development and business reform. Throughout his career, he has worked for a number of private companies and donors in various positions. Most recently, he held a post with the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) in Kosovo, where he managed a portfolio of Economic Development projects in a total value of more than €45 million. Currently, Mr. Hundozi is the Deputy General Manager of Crimson Advisors, where his responsibilities include business development and project management for Kosovo and Southeast Europe. He has an international academic background from Kosovo, Germany, the UK and Greece and is currently finishing his MBA degree from Sheffield University. In addition to his native Albanian, Mr. Hundozi speaks English, German and other regional languages.

Darko Arsov is a Project Manager at Crimson Capital. He has more than five years of experience managing large-scale, business and strategy development projects, for both the private sector and on international development projects. Prior to joining Crimson, Mr. Arsov was e-Commerce Manager, at ITpreneurs, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where he was responsible for development of e-commerce activities, including client networking, business development and marketing. He has also freelanced as a Market Research Analyst in Macedonia for a global market intelligence company, where he conducted extensive analyses of the Macedonian business sector and numerous industries. Between 2003 and 2007, Mr. Arsov worked as Technology Integration Manager for e-Schools, a USAID/Macedonia funded activity. He was responsible for designing and implementing nationwide campaign to modernize education, and developing vast ICT infrastructure in all public schools in Macedonia.

Mr. Arsov holds a BBA in Management Information System from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, and an MBA in Strategy Management from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. He is fluent in Macedonian, English and Serbian.

Mr. Frank Lever is a former President of finance companies with more than 42 years total experience. His expertise covers company restructuring, financial restructure, establishing bank lines of credit, and company strategy with broad experience in lease financing. Previous positions include serving as the President of GE Capital-Equipment Finance Division in Canada where he managed a leasing portfolio that included all types of commercial equipment including production and processing equipment. He has extensive experience in agriculture leasing as the Manager of the Far East and Africa for International Harvester (IH) where he managed the IH Finance Companies in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and established a lease company in the Philippines.

From 2003 – 2005, Mr. Lever worked for the IFC in a long term position on the Georgian Business Development Project where a core focus of his work was developing and increasing leasing activities across the country. He is currently engaged by Crimson Capital as a leasing expert in both Kosovo and Moldova helping leading commercial banks and other financial institutions develop new leasing products.

Mr. Lozano is a senior micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) specialist with 25 years of professional experience in the Latin American financial services industry, including 16 years in Peru, where he developed strong relationships working with microfinance institutions, commercial banks, credit unions and supervisory authorities. Mr. Lozano’s areas of expertise in financial services and regulations are broad and include credit systems, operations, finance, control mechanisms, marketing, strategic planning, organizational analysis and auditing. He began his career with the financial services industry in Peru, spending close to 6 years with one of Peru’s largest banks, Banco Industrial del Peru. At Banco Industrial, he managed the Credit Department and spearheaded initiatives to start new lending programs for the MSME sector. He also worked for the bank managing its extensive branch network in the North and Central regions. After his successful career at Banco Industrial, he took part on the design team of Peru’s Mibanco, creating a new breed of commercial banks specializing in the microenterprise market segment.

In addition to his extensive experience with Peruvian micro, small and medium enterprises, Mr. Lozano served for 5 years as Chief-of-Party on two successive microfinance and banking activities funded by USAID/Honduras. From 2003 to 2005, he directed the Honduras Microfinance and Banking Support Project and from 2000 to 2003 he directed USAID’s predecessor project focused on support to microfinance institutions. Under his leadership, the two Honduran projects were able to produce important results, including securing the commitment of two large commercial banks to move into SME lending, developing new financial products tailored towards SMEs, and supporting microfinance institutions in their transformation to regulated institutions supervised by the banking regulator. Mr. Lozano joins the Crimson team to lead the finance component of the Promoting Integrated Development (PID) Program in Peru. He is a certified member of the Institute of Internal Auditors since 1997, acertified public accountant in Peru and holds a B.S. from the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo.

Mr. Martinovski has extensive experience in banking and finance and has designed, delivered, and implemented SME Lending programs. He has also established policy guidelines in all phases of credit risk assessment, loan workouts, strategic planning, and marketing. He has served as an Undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance of Macedonia responsible for World Bank negotiations, the first government bonds issue, and reform of capital markets and banking. Prior to joining the SME Fund, Mr. Martinovski was the Director of the Macedonian Bank for Development Promotion, where he managed a 50 million euro SME loan portfolio.

Mr. Marinovoski has been involved in the design and development of the SME Fund since its earliest stages. His responsibilities as General Manager include credit policies and procedures, credit approval and disbursement procedures, credit risk management, lending portfolio, marketing and customer care. He has a degree in Economics from Sts. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, and is fluent in English in addition to his native Macedonian.

Mr. Ortega is a development finance and trade specialist with more than 20 years’ experience in management of commercial and development banking operations and programs strengthening microfinance institutions and international rural finance. In addition to conducting extensive research on trade and development, he has designed legislation and regulation for capital and financial market development. Mr. Ortega previously worked as General Manager for Tironi & Associates in Bolivia, led efforts to expand rural finance activity in Honduras, and served as Secretary of National Planning, Capitalization, and Investment for the government of Bolivia. He has completed consulting assignments in Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, and Guatemala.

Mr. Ortega is presently leading Crimson Capital’s project in finance and investment development for the Bolivia Rural Competitiveness Activity (ARCo). He has completed a detailed analysis and survey of the Bolivian financial sector and begun to launch new financial products and services on the Bolivian market. Mr. Ortega holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the Kennedy School at Harvard, as well as a Master’s degree in International Administration (MIA) from the School for International Training in Vermont. He speaks fluent English and French in addition to his native Spanish.

Mr. Ristevski has more than 5 years experience in banking and the financial sector. For the commercial banks in Macedonia, Mr. Ristevski has worked as a Loan Officer and has more than two years of experience as a Branch Manager in different regions of Macedonia. In this supervisory position, he was responsible for setting up the branch, establishing and developing a range of banking products, developing and maintaining loan and retail portfolios and overseeing 33 employees. He is currently employed as a Finance and Marketing Specialist, on USAID’s AgBiz Program where he is focused on helping AgBiz customers gain access to viable and competitive sources of finance, including but not limited to loans, leasing, factoring and forfeiting. He will also provide training to producers, processors and SMEs on how to assess capital needs, including but not limited to working capital requirements, long-term financing, and equity investments; and how to develop viable business plans with items such as a detailed value proposition and financial models that demonstrate capital need, ability to repay, and investment opportunity. He is completing a degree in the Faculty of Technical Science, Mechanical Engineering Department, at Sts. Kliment Ohridski, University in Bitola, and he is fluent in English as well as his native Macedonian.

Simona Sosolceva has worked for Crimson Capital since beginning her career in 1998. She started as an Investment Specialist on the MBRC program, where she helped catalyze several million dollars in new trade and investment for Macedonia. She also has played a central role in the organization and implementation of four Business and Investment Roundtables with the Government of Macedonia from 2001 – 2005.

Ms. Sosolceva has worked at the SME Fund since 2002, operating a broad loan portfolio for all sectors and regions of the Macedonian economy. She also implements the Fund’s marketing and public relations program. Ms. Sosolceva has a B.A. in Economics from 1994 and is completing post-graduate studies on the European Union at the University of Economics in Skopje. She speaks Macedonian, English, Serbian and Bulgarian.

Mrs. Tasevska has 14 years of experience in the SME sector. Her career began as an employee of the Foundation for SME development, where she subsequently became a business advisor. As business advisor, she was responsible for promotion, training, and consulting of SMEs.

Mrs. Tasevska has worked at the SME Fund as Senior Loan Officer since 2003. She is responsible for promotion of Fund products, analyzing credit applications, preparing proposals, and monitoring and evaluating of delivered loans for SMEs.

Mrs. Tasevska graduated from Sts. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje in 1992 with a BS degree in Economics with a major specialization in Banking. Between 2000 and 2002, she participated in the South Eastern Europe Program and became a Master of Training and Consulting. She is fluent in English and in a few other regional languages.

Mr. Nysret Spahija has 6 years of experience in the microfinance sector. He began his professional work with microfinance institutions as an employee of the Beslidhja Microfinance Program, where he specialized in agriculture lending. While at Beslidhja Microfinance, he worked as a Risk & Marketing Assistant, as a Loan Officer, and finally as a Senior Loan Officer. Prior to his work on the Beslidhja Microfinance Program, he worked as a Logistics Officer for Norwegian People Aid (NPA).

Artina Sadiku began her career in the SME sector as a Sales and Product Promotion Officer at Bonus Bonita and was subsequently promoted to a Sales Manager. Following this, she was in charge of the Accounting and Finance department of the Education Institute at the Academy of Art.

Ms. Artina graduated from Pristina University in 2006 with a BS degree in Economics. She has completed training programs in accounting, finance and project management. A native Albanian speaker, Ms. Sadiku is also fluent in English and Serbo-Croatian.

Ms. Edisa Gjevori has extensive experience in business lending and project management. Prior to joining Crimson Capital, she worked as a Business Loan Officer at ProCredit Bank in Kosovo, where she managed and monitored client loans and developed extensive working relationships with the Pristina business community. Prior to this, Ms. Gjevori worked in administration, finance, and languages. She holds a degree in Banking and Finance issued by the Royal University Iliria and certificates in Client Management, Strategic Planning, Sales, Finance Management and Project Management issued by the University of Business and Technology (UBT) in Kosovo. In addition to her native Albanian language, she speaks fluent Serbo-Croatian and English, and Italian at an intermediate level.

Ani is a graduate of New York University with a degree in philosophy. After working in radio and in the music business as a manager and publicist, she moved to Armenia. There, she began to work in development, in anti- human trafficking, as a translator, and as an editor of books and magazines. She has lived in Armenia since 2007 and currently works with Crimson Capital as a researcher and coordinator of projects in Armenia.